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Thursday, 13 November 2014

The strategy building mapping
workshop took place in Lima from the 10th -12th of November. The incremental steps to be taken to halt the
unwanted change were identified in both Barrios Altos and JCM.

In JCM, strong pressure from land
traffickers is claiming large areas of land upslope. The opening up of roads and
selling of plots is leading to the fast urbanisation of areas considered in
physical risk. The trafficking is creating conflicts on the territory, not only
because of encroach on the perimeter of existing settlements, but also and more
importantly, because it is increasing risk for those living lower down the
slope.

The JCM mappers identified and
marked all the pressure points from the land trafficking activities, noting the
areas which needed to be conserved as open spaces. The main strategy which
emerged, is the need for each settlement to form a Committee for Open Spaces, recognised
and registered in the Municipality, as well a larger association bringing these
different committees together. Exploring all the legal avenues and the various front
to work in parallel to stop land traffickers, they agreed that the recognition
of the committees have to go hand in hand with the recognition of the territory
over which they will exert their rights. They will produce a map of these open
spaces and seek to have it certified by the municipality.

Barrios Altos, having shared the progress
made so far with the mapping of their own block, developed the steps and time
frames to strengthen the internal organisation and gain greater visibility towards
the outside. Priority areas were identified on the map, in order to first reach
out to those who are in imminent threat of eviction. In this way, organising
around particular problems was seen as the way to strengthen collective action
and widen the network. Other steps included the contact with already organised
groups and getting newspapers to publish and make visible particular issues. To
support this, maps of evictions, change of use into storage and water distribution, will be produced.